Insurance Companies and Climate Change

By Jessica In our case on Travelers Insurance, we learned about the immense effect climate change can have on insurance companies: claim volume has been climbing year over year and catastrophes like Hurricane Sandy can cause drops in profits of over 50%. As climate change increases the amount of catastrophic natural disasters, insurance companies have […]

Continue reading →

Better Foods = More Water-Intensive Foods?

By Dave Uppal In our class on Whole Foods, we discussed the importance of moving our population toward a healthier diet. Students talked about how they felt better when they ate food they bought at Whole Foods and how we could solve a lot of public health crises by eating better. I decided to look […]

Continue reading →

Ignorance is bliss – food crises and why more changes are necessary

By Laura The phrase ‘ignorance is bliss’ from the IndentiGEN case discussion stuck in my head. In the US it is not unusual for chicken to be washed in ammonia or cattle to be fed poultry litter – all in the name of satisfying the market demand for huge quantities of meat, at rock bottom […]

Continue reading →

Changing Consumer Behavior

By Jair H. Many of the topics that we’ve covered are solutions to the underlying problem at stake. Consumers will not change consumption behavior easily, or at all. EnerNOC tackles this challenge by offering a monetary reward to consumers who are willing to diminish their consumption at a specific time. EnerNOC’s solution is actually saving […]

Continue reading →

Mexico City Water Shortage: Changing Consumer Behavior to Effect Change

By Kayley In the Mexico City Water Shortage case, we saw that despite plentiful rainwater, Mexico City still suffered from severe shortages of clean water with persistent theft, leakage, and non-payment despite efforts from a public-private partnership (“PPP”). While in class we focused on various structural challenges that impeded progress – namely dispersed responsibility across […]

Continue reading →

Behavioral change in residential electricity consumption

By Franziska E. The effectiveness-cost pyramid suggests that the biggest potential for energy savings lies in behavioral change. How can we realize this potential for savings by changing the behavior of the demand side? The first lever that comes to my mind is influencing consumption by increasing the price. As we already discussed in the […]

Continue reading →

When Your Roof Doubles as a Power Plant: How Distributed Solar Power Will Change Electricity

By Jim Eskew Investors are beginning to notice certain trends in the market for solar power – namely that consumers aren’t buying solar panels; they’re buying POWER from panels installed on their rooftop. This movement is part of a phenomenon known as distributed generation, whereby energy is produced locally and usually in smaller increments than […]

Continue reading →

Your Prius or my Beefy Crumbles?

By Ann Marie Envision a typical American meal from the 1950s. Now envision an American meal in 2000. Which plate contains more red meat? Hint: stories of a move away from the old “meat and potatoes” diet do not play out in the data. In 2000, Americans consumed a whopping 195 pounds of meat per […]

Continue reading →

What business model for home – scale water and waste water reuse in Kenya?

By Edwin Baimpwi I’ve been working to commercialize a waste water treatment system that’s inexpensive and works at the homeowner scale in Kenya.   What suggestions do classmates have? Some context: In the US, the person who drains septic tanks in residential areas that are not connected to the grid is called a “honey dipper” and […]

Continue reading →

What do Wal-Mart and McDonalds have in common?

By N.R. Wal-Mart and McDonalds have many things in common that most Americans know about. They are both huge American companies that operate around the world and that thrive on affordability for their customers. Wal-Mart and McDonalds are both publicly traded and have historically outperformed the market during economic downturns. However, what some people (myself […]

Continue reading →